This One Goes Out to the Ones I Loved
Nothing like a favorite band calling it quits to rouse a blogger out of his stupor. I’ll try to capture some thoughts, over the next few days, regarding R.E.M.’s announcement yesterday that they’re throwing in the towel.
I don’t have what I think of as the “Woodstock” story to tell about R.E.M. I wasn’t at Woodstock; I was only 10. And I didn’t see R.E.M. play at a frat party in Athens in 1980, or at the 40 Watt. Indeed, I never really listened to them … until 1994. When Monster came out. When I was 35, for pity’s sake, had four kids, and was in graduate school.
That’s not how this kind of story is supposed to go, coming from a Baby Boomer. I’m supposed to claim to have known them long before you did, long before they got famous, sold out, whatever. But it’s just not true. I first heard of them so late that it was tragically unhip.
By then, “true” fans knew that their best work was behind them; they’d passed through cult unintelligibility (Chronic Town, Murmur), popular success (Out of Time), and had landed in artsy brain-rock obscurity. But I loved it. So that I learned R.E.M.’s career and catalog backwards: I listened to everything through the lens of Monster (and two years later, New Adventures in Hi-Fi), rather than the other way around. I was looking at their career through the wrong end of the telescope: but it did look pretty cool. Indeed, ever since the news broke yesterday, the song that’s been going through my head is “Bittersweet Me,” off New Adventures. I’ll bet good money that song’s not going to be the soundtrack to any of the media coverage of the band’s breakup.
In another sense, though, the band’s entire career is important to me because they “got together” when Robyn & I did–in 1980. Their first record, “Radio Free Europe,” was released on July 8, 1981; Robyn & I were married five weeks later. Their recording career, that is to say, is–was, until yesterday–essentially co-extensive with our marriage. So that while it took me awhile to discover them, they came to have an important sentimental value for me. (For those of you who don’t know me well, it’s probably important to say that in no way does R.E.M’s breakup portend our own. Robyn and I are very happy, thank you.)
Perhaps someone who has paid better, closer attention to the recent albums can make a case for them, but I’ve not heard much to interest me in the last five albums. Fortunately, I did get to hear them play once, though again, as everywhere in this story, it was very late: summer 2003, in Dublin. I could tell you the date, but I’d have to take off my shirt: I’m wearing my gunmetal gray R.E.M. Tour ’03 shirt today in mourning.
I’ll check the precise date tonight and use it in tomorrow’s post, as I think & mourn a bit more, with your indulgence.
I hopped on board the REM bandwagon before you, Kevin, although I cannot claim to have been early to the party. (The 80s are kind of a big hole in my music experience–grad school, kids, poverty, etc.) But I am a fan of their work up until the point when I stopped paying attention–in the early to mid-90s. Nice sound, semi-inscrutable lyrics. Good stuff.
But I’m not sure this is a cause for mourning. They’ve been past their creative peak for years. It’s just time. As an old Giants fan, I have images in my mind of Willy Mays trying to hang on too long. Better to hang ‘em up before it gets embarrassing.
Of course, if they need cash, they can always get together for a “Filthy Lucre” tour.
Thought of you when I heard this news. I also discovered REM via Monster. I was a huge Kurt Cobain fan at the time and he had made it apparent that Michael Stipe was a friend and influence. I had never really heard the early REM stuff until I found a copy of Reckoning on vinyl at a thrift shop last year. I quickly grew to love it. I can’t comment on their newer stuff but it seemed like strange timing since their newest album got fairly good reviews. I read somewhere that their breakup is in part due to label disputes, but maybe that is just the rumor mill. Anyhow, sorry to hear the bad news, but this leaves room for individual projects and reunions!
Curiously, REM caught my ear on mainstream rock radio stations in and between Flint, MI and Columbus, OH with Orange Crush, End of the World and The One I Love all receiving steady play.
What struck me about this announcement was the realization that they hadn’t pulled the plug years ago. It forced me to check AllMusic and discover that from a band I had been quite fond of through the Monster release, there were at least a half dozen albums I was essentially unaware of. Although, they seem to have milked the live album teat for about half that output.
At the risk of sounding uncharacteristically cynical, might the formality of the announcement have any calculated role in pushing their latest release as well as their back catalogue?